Smile The Beloved Country, Smile at The Storm

When South Africa's Alan Paton wrote Cry The Beloved Country in 1948, it was to protest against the injustices that pervaded South African society at the time. Paton's book sought to highlight fear, sabotage, racial segregation and looming entropy infiltrating South Africa in those days, in order to force the world's attention to his country's direction. Paton aptly demonstrated that the restrictive governance system, in which South Africa was operating in yester years, was inimical to both whites and blacks and when left unchecked, could ultimately lead to the destruction of the country. The book however ended on a positive note, indicating that all was not lost for South Africa, and that after all there was light at the end of the dark tunnel. That dark tunnel turned out to be the oppressive system of apartheid. Cry The Beloved Country has been rightly adjudged to be one of South Africa's greatest literary successes, attracting in its wake rave reviews, movies, plays and other inspired work.

The current Ghanaian situation is no where near what pertained in the South Africa of those days. On the political level, Ghana has just emerged out of a very close elections, scoring full marks (or nearly full marks) in the process. Never mind the hegemony and cross-party accusations that characterised the days leading to the final declaration of results. Socially, there is relative peace in the country with largely equal opportunity for all irrespective of ethnic, religious, gender or political leaning.

However, the critical hurdle that the country has to climb comes in the form of development and social progress. Fifty-two years into the post-independence period, Ghana is still struggling to come to terms with basic developmental landmarks such as education, health, agriculture and now ICT. Poverty still stares the masses closely in the face. It is as if the life of chronic deprivation, want and squalor have hugged our people so tightly, the way super glue sticks to stuff, that they cannot disentangle themselves. Here in lies our shortfall as a nation.

In a related development, the World Bank has waved red flags at the current state of the Ghanaian macro economy. Recently, the World Bank country director warned in a January report that despite recent growth, both the fiscal and balance of payments deficits of the country were "unsustainable." Additionally, we are currently enjoying a respite due to the rapid decline of the price of crude oil on the international market. But I ask myself the question: "if this trend should continue, what are the implications for the country in mid 2010 when we start exporting oil?" I am no economist, so i leave this to those who are more qualified to answer. But my lay mind tells me that things are going to be quite tough within the next couple of years and we must brace ourselves for it. Also we should lower our expectations with regards to the potential revenue we would get from crude oil sales.

But all is not lost. The resilient Ghanaian personality has been through some pretty rough times and come out strong. We have been through colonialism, many coup d'etats, famine and we are still moving on. What is required now is a concerted broad-based social initiative to lift the country out of the quagmire of poverty and underdevelopment, and to pull the chestnut out of the raging flames. That positive Ghanaian attitude that refuses to waver in the face of the storm, the tendency to smile calmly, irrespective of the situation at hand, must be called into action.

To wind up, struggle, politically, socially and economically, threaten the development efforts of many countries. Ghana's current situation should not be a disincentive to the country's known hallmarks of hardwork and excellence. I therefore exort every Ghanaian to put their hand to the wheel and do service to the motherland. Yes we can! Smile the beloved country, smile at the storm!

Celebrating The Beauty of Ghanaian Democracy

So on January 3, the dust settled and the new president in the person of Prof. J.E.A. Mills was declared by Uncle Kwadwo Afari-Gyan. There was rapturous cheer from the 50.23% of the Ghanaian electorate who endorsed the NDC in the second round of the 2008 presidential elections. Understandably, most of the remaining 49.77%, who voted for the NPP in the second round, heaved a sigh of relief that all was over. Bottomline-About 95% of Ghanaians were happy about the way the elections went and how the democratic process dictated the choice of the country's leadership for the next four years.

Ghana's solid democratic credentials were further enhanced on January 7th, when the new parliament and head of the executive were sworn into office. The icing on the cake was the unanimous election of the Rt Hon Justice Joyce Adeline Bamford-Addo as the first Ghanaian female speaker of parliament. This was ample demonstration that Ghanaians are comfortable with having female leaders in senior positions, as two of the arms of government are now being run by women. I await the day that a worthy daughter of Ghana takes up the presidency of this republic.

Then the inauguration ceremony proper gave us many reasons to celebrate. All the key actors on our political stage were there to grace the occasion, indicating that the new president enjoyed goodwill across the political spectrum. Again the acceptance speech of President Mills was very heartwarming. His friendly overtures to the losing contenders, especially Nana Akufo-Addo, and his promise to build a just, secure, prosperous and better Ghana is an exhibition that he has what it takes to be a good president. We expectantly await the actual implementation of all the lofty ideals beautifully encapsulated in his speech

Following on the heals of all these great achievements, considered by many connoiseurs as trailblazing by third-world standards, Ghana has been receiving great applause by her peers in international circles. Congratulatory messages keep pouring in from far and near, and the country's general goodwill in international circle is increasing daily. From Togo, through Nigeria, Libya, UK to Canada, Ghana is once again being celebrated as the darling of the international community and her accomplishments touted to be worth copying by those countries who are still wallowing in the scourge of dictatorships. Never mind the fact that some of these countries are also struggling with their own systems of government!

What the Mills presidency has to do is to take advantage of this goodwill and continue chalking ground-breaking developmental landmarks, like President J.A. Kufuor before them, in order to further the development agenda of Ghana. One other major task of President Mills is for Ghana to be more vociferous with regards to her traditional foreign policy initiatives which has been aimed at exploring the possibility of African unity as envisioned by the country's founding fathers.

In summary, Ghanaian democracy is definitely on the rise taking into account all the exciting developments of the past few weeks. We look forward to all the parties involved in the governance of the country working together that it moves forward. The successes of Ghanaian democracy are definitely worth celebrating!

Lessons From BarCampGhana '08

I know that by now my avid readers would be on the verge of dying from thirst due to the fact that, over the past two months, there have been no new entries on The Gamelian World. I am extremely sorry for this apparent desertion but let it be on record that, over the course of the past few months, i had to attend to other equally pressing engagements. Today's entry, as appropriately titled, is a tribute to youthful initiative and how such endeavours would inevitable spur the development agenda of Ghana and Africa.

On 22nd December 2008, i was part the group that participated in BarCampGhana. For starters, a barcamp is an unstructured gathering of people, an un-conference where people share ideas on topical issues. This is markedly different from a regular conference where experts hold sway on all issues under discussion. The organisers of the event envisaged it to be a gathering of like minded people in science, technology and business to discuss and interact in a fun environment. One theme that run throughout the deliberations was Ghana's place in the global scheme of things. The programme largely met its objectives and hold significant learning points for all aspiring future leaders.

Firstly that young people with the required initiative and drive can achieve whatever they put their mind to. The programme itself was put together by young Ghanaians who had the vision of advancing the use of technology in various spheres of Ghanaian life, in order to bring about the development we've all been yearning for. Similarly, some of the great innovations put on the table were from home-based young technology entrepreneurs-another pointer that the realisation of the dreams of young people is a possibility in this country.

Another key learning point from BarCampGhana is the need for the adoption of a progressive approach to doing things. Typical conferences have been criticised for not producing the requisite results because of disengagement of the audience at certain points of the event. One feature of BarCampGhana were the break out sessions. These sessions featured diverse discussions points that allowed participants to join any discussion of their choice. This ultimately promoted an atmosphere of engagement, contribution, learning and idea-generation. The point i want to make is that in the future, event organisers should not only stick to the way things are known to be done but to involve some level of flexibility and versatility.

A final learning point from BarCampGhana was the manner in which time was respected. This broke the perennial jinx of poor time management that plague most Ghanaian events. The event started on time and most of the key note speakers turned up. This only goes to show that Ghanaians' disrespect for time is something that we can easily overcome if we continue to demand of ourselves the highest standards when it comes to time management.

The only slight hitch of course was that the "big men and women" themselves did not show up at the time they were supposed to, begging consideration due to the pressure that mounts on them when the close of the year approaches. The negative consequence of the above is that their experienced perspectives were missing during most of the break out sessions. The organisers could make it a point to "be on them" and get them to come at the right time next year.

Putting the above together, BarCampGhana has been a shiny example of how youth initiative is on the verge of spurring massive development through technology in Africa, there are many lessons to be learnt from such proactivity, and the elderly generation must lend a hand to these efforts in order to support the young ones.

In praising the developments that took place at BarCampGhana, let me put on record that the exciting ideas that were brought to the fore at the event should not end on the floors of the venue as we have seen time and time again in Ghana. We must all make the effort of ensuring that these dreams are brought to life. Again, we must also take the message of BarCampGhana, as wished by the organisers, to the various communities in Ghana. This is to ensure that science technology and business are appropriately seen and utilised as the drivers of wealth and development in modern society.

Does open source software hold the future?

Over the past few years, the open source movement has made sturdy progress on the global stage as a strong contender to traditional proprietary software. Characteristic of this trend has been the rise of the Mozilla Firefox browser and the apache server software.

As an active participant in the global scheme of things, Africa has not been left out of the open source party. There are many indications to prove the above assertion. Firstly, it is on record that the West African nation of Mali is completely inundated with the Linux operating system. Secondly, there are not only African consumers, but also content providers. The name of Mark Shuttleworth, originator of the Linux-based Ubuntu project readily comes to mind. Finally, the Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa (FOSSFA) leads a pack of local advocates who are continually spreading the gospel of the open source movement. I was at one of such fora last Wednesday 22nd October at the AITI-KACE here in Accra. The proceedings at that gathering put some few thoughts into my mind and is the inspiration for this entry.

I realised, first and foremost as an aspiring developer, the enormous tools that open source software has put at my disposal. The mere availability of the source code and the community behind the entire movement are metaphoric of petals and nectar in flowers, thus drawing many to accept the open source gospel. Pro-open source people think that their choice of software is a right and that they must be allowed to enjoy those rights just as any other right. They therefore see restrictions put on proprietary software as violations of their rights.

In addition, open source software gives aspiring young business people free or inexpensive software to run their business operations without running the risk of using cracked software. Issues have also been raised with small size of documents saved in the .odt format(openoffice writer) as against .doc format (microsoft word).

However, what has been seen as the key advantage of open source software as advanced by their evangelists, is the comparative low cost that they offer. This means that if African governments and business organisations should adopt open source, they would save scarce financial resources that can be expended on other pressing needs.

Contrary to the above arguments, pundits who argue for proprietary software also have strong reasons for which this switch will not happen overnight. Firstly, they argue that the quality of open source software does not stand up to that of proprietary software. Secondly, they say that the overall cost of open source, in terms of waste of time and inconvenience, is more than that of proprietary. What has been their trump card is the fact that people are so used to their software that they would not wish to change. Remember shifting to a new type of software will mean retraining all staff which has serious cost implications.

Both sides have strong arguments, which means that any future government and organisational-level decisions in this direction must be well thought through.

In summary, I have touched on the strides of the open source movement, especially in Africa, their quest for widespread adoption of their software, and the response of the proprietary software world. The debate continues......

Africa Too Has a Story to Tell

In many fields of human endeavour, African names are missing on the list of top achievers. This often creates the impression that the African has nothing, or at best very little, to offer to the world. The above misconception has continually been perpetuated such that anything that is good must necessarily be of western or eastern origin -or at least so they say. In the world of software development, on the global landscape, hardly are African names mentioned as active participants.

Does this mean that there are no African participants in this industry? Answer, NO! Although there are relatively few African players at the global level, there is a significant number of them out there worth mentioning. These people are playing key trendsetting roles and therefore demonstrating to aspiring African software industry players that indeed their dream is a feasible one.

There are three reasons why the stories of successful African software entrepreneurs do not catch fire. One is the fact that the very nature of most African cultures has restrained them from projecting their images in the public domain, lest they appear to be showing off. Secondly, the level of technology on the mother continent is so low that there are few African praise singers who will bring the stories of these heroes of ours to the fore. The third reason, which is the one that holds more weight, is that global media organisations are so preoccupied with reporting killings, wars, diseases and poverty in Africa that the speedy pace of technological advancements on the continent has been left uncommented on.

During the last few weeks I and my colleagues at MEST were tasked to investigate the success stories of successful African software entrepreneurs. The many names that came up were amazing and most revealing to me. This is because i had no idea that there were so many Africans making giant strides in the global software space. These were no Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, but they were Vinny Lingham, Joe Jackson, Harriet Somuah and Mark Shuttleworth in their own rights. I and my former group mates, Edward and Nii Nai, had a date with Mr Joe Jackson, CEO of theSOFTtribe, Nigeria, and this was really exciting.

My encounter with Mr Jackson was not only educative, as it allowed me to learn first hand the goings on of an industry in which i intend to become an active player, but also very deep in the sense that it afforded me the opportunity to reflect on the realities of the global software industry. I discovered that the internet was far more powerful than i thought and that to become successful in the web industry one must aim global.

But what was more intriguing about our interaction was the story Mr Jackson had to tell. The story was about how he and his partner, Mr Chinery-Hesse, started theSOFTtribe from a bedroom. It was about how the organisation grew to become a leader in West Africa and to have about 30% penetration into Ghana Club 100(group of 100 most successful Ghanaian companies). His story painted a vivid picture of the ingenuity of SOFT as they tasked themselves with the duty of providing African businesses with "tropically tolerant" software. Through the interaction we also discovered the difficulties SOFT is facing in the advent of the globalised world and the strategies that they are employing to overcome these challenges. Specifically, the company had to change its business model because the cascading effects of globalisation ensured that the world became a smaller place. Therefore major business decisions that were hitherto localised, such as decision to purchase software, were now shifted to USA, Europe or South Africa. The end result is that local software companies started losing out on business because the mother branches of most multinational firms were calling the shots. This situation was aggravated by the fact that Ghanaian companies that had foreign partners sarted shunning SOFT's products, even though they agree that they were of superior quality in the Ghanaian environment.

So the company had to give up its long term vision of building Enterprise Resource Planning Applications (ERPs) for West-African businesses. Instead they entered into a strategic partnership with Microsoft, where the software giant allowed them access to the source code of their Dynamics NAV software(formerly known as navision). This way the company brought knowledge of the local terrain to the table while microsoft brought international credibility. This ground-breaking deal turned out to be a win-win situation for both parties. The good news is that this has gone a long way to boost the business standing of theSOFTtribe.

To put everything together, there is massive evidence that Africans are active participants in the global order, specifically the software industry. The story of Mr Joe Jackson and theSOFTtribe is testimony that African companies experience the same forces that shape the business of organsations worldwide. It is also very important for young Africans to draw inspiration from these trailblazers and take a massive shot at their destinies by engaging in entrepreneurial pursuits. Finally, we can all acknowledge that indeed the african too has a story to tell!